Not so very long ago, a traveller could visit Syria and marvel at its antiquities and the beauty of its countryside, and be charmed by its people. This book comprises photographs and personal recollections by a Melbourne University team that was excavating a Bronze Age site known as el Qitar, on the Euphrates River, east of Aleppo. It marks a timeless moment before Syria was engulfed by war, and it will remind the reader of what humanity has lost and has yet to restore. By artbook publisher Jenny Zimmer, with contributions by Claudia Sagona and Andrew Jamieson of the University of Melbourne and Graeme Clarke of the Australian National University in Canberra, all of whom have undertaken substantial archaeological research in Syria in the early 1980s and beyond.